Gray Matters
by Inverse-chan
Summary: One-shot. Heero/Minako/Kunzite triangle. "When he kisses her, he can almost believe that the love there is for him. Almost." REVISED 12-17-10


**Series: **Gundam Wing/ Sailor Moon**  
Title: **Gray Matters  
**Rating: **R  
**Pairing/ Characters: **Minako/Heero, Minako/Kunzite  
**Word Count: **1128  
**Warning/s: **Know both series.**  
Disclaimer:** Not mine.

When she slams down her third shot, he knows where this is going.

He is not the type to go to bars, much less pick up women at them, but she is not what you would normally assume. Yes, she's a girl (a, needless, confession between the second and third shots) getting over her ex-boyfriend. Yes, she's dressed to kill; her simple black dress hugging her curves and drawing attention to just the right places. Yes, she's wearing too much makeup – ruby red lips and dark kohl smeared across large eyes.

But she is not flirting with him. She is not trying to find true love again. There is no desperation in her actions; this is what makes her stand out from the crowd and makes her different from any other pretty face. He feels as if it would make no difference to her if she was sitting by the guy with the beer belly and the receding hairline across the dance floor, instead of him.

As he gazes at her, wondering about her, he knows that she isn't doing the same.

Perhaps that's why he takes her home.

* * *

Sometime during the night, she takes off the red bow that keeps the hair out of her eyes. She sets it lightly, carefully, on the nightstand beside the bed, as if it were precious instead of common cotton. Her hair hangs freely, now – a golden frame for her porcelain face, her jewel blue eyes.

She is not soft – she is metal and fire and something so bright that it hurts to look into her eyes for too long, even in the dark.

She is strong, relentless, merciless. Perfect and intoxicating.

Afterwards, he starts to doze; he sees her pull on her underwear. "You weren't half bad," she says, a quirk on her lips. He's transfixed by how the lipstick smeared over her chin and cheek. She walks to his bathroom.

When he wakes up, she is not there. Her clothes, the red ribbon in her hair – all spirited away.

He finds a scrap of paper by his lamp – a number and no name.

He doesn't know her name.

* * *

Heero calls her a week later.

She doesn't not seem particularly thrilled to hear his voice. She doesn't seem disappointed either.

She doesn't seem much of anything. Her voice and words are coy and flirting, of course, but it's as if she's only putting in the minimal effort to keep his attention.

He wonders if she cares to know his name.

* * *

They meet. Something every couple of days, sometimes every couple of weeks. Always, always, always at his place.

He knows her name now – it is a small concession considering that he doesn't know anything else. 'An aspiring actress,' she'd said, about a week in, and the small self-deprecating smile that had appeared had made him feel guilty for asking.

(Heero had asked about the cuts and bruises, once, and she had said that she was a superhero in her spare time. His laughter had sounded flat when she didn't join in.)

He finds himself running a finger down her red bow, once, when she is in the bathroom. It's soft under his fingers, old and worn thin. He catches himself wondering if she would let him run his hands through her silk-like hair if he asked.

(He doesn't ask. He already knows her answer, though he doesn't really know her; she'd shrug and let him, and then draw him in; just another form of foreplay. Apart from that, the action would be meaningless to her.)

"Don't worry," Minako says one night, light self-mockery in her tone, "you won't fall in love with me." Heero takes this as a sign that he has been looking too intently at her, and looks away.

"It's impossible," she continues, in a voice people usually reserve for discussing the weather. "No one can fall in love with me."

She smiles; dust and cobwebs gathered in the corners of her smile, in the depths of her eyes. "It's my own personal curse."

She's talking to him, but that is simply because he happens to be there. She is not thinking of him, he knows. Her heart is miles away.

He does not ask because she would never answer if he did.

* * *

One day, there is a knock on his door. He goes to it, Minako not far behind. There is a man at the step – taller than him, long silver hair, jewel green eyes. He does not spare Heero so much as a glance; looks only at Minako and asks to speak with her outside.

Heero looks in her face, and the love he sees there is so strong that it suffocates.

He lets her leave without a word of protest – what right did he have to ask her to stay? What was he in the end if not just a one night stand prolonged in its futility?

They are just outside the door. There are no raised voices, no anger, no tears.

They talk for hours, and it is all Heero can do to stay away from the door, out of the range of their voices.

She comes in and he is on the couch, waiting. They don't talk, as always. Heero knows he wouldn't be able to hold her attention as the silver-haired man did; not with something as insubstantial as words.

When they move to the bedroom, she whispers 'Kunzite,' and looks at him, eyes full. He looks away, burning. When he kisses her, his eyes closed, he can almost believe that the love there is for him.

Almost.

* * *

Perhaps her curse is not so black and white. There is always moderation, after all. Maybe, he thinks, it's not that no one can fall in love with her.

Maybe it's that she is doomed to love those who cannot return her feelings. Maybe those who love her are in turn not people she can love.

He thinks that a curse like that would be doubly effective. Doubly destructive.

He drinks and in the morning his hangover is so bad that he calls in sick and sleeps.

* * *

When she shows up at his doorstep, he knows it will be the last time.

It is much like the first time; metal and fire – molten gold. 'Full circle,' he thinks, and it is appropriate.

On the nightstand she has left her ribbon instead of her number.

'It smells like her,' he thinks, and tucks it away. Somewhere he won't find it for a very long time.

* * *

"Who was he?" Kunzite asks one night, Minako's loose hair is splayed across him – a curtain of gold.

Her arm trails up his, and she kisses him.

"He wasn't you," she whispers, and that is the end of the matter.


End file.
